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Top Marxism-Leninism-Maoism vs. Oppression
...The conditions here are horrific! The atrocities we prisoners face are numerous. This koncentration gulag specializes in psychological warfare with the use of chemical agents. I must add sadly that the prisoners here are losing the battle. They are being turned in to children and their minds are being ruined.
The Amerikkkan government and the Bureau of oppressing people (BOP), along with the injustice system has designed this supermadness to break the spirit of the men here! I have witnessed brutal beatings by the pigs and seen prisoners made to eat feces. Yea, feces. It's like the dog who messes on the house carpet and his face is smeared into it. This is done to the men who throw feces.
The repression is so offensive that the prisoners here are cutting their wrists, hanging themselves, fighting among each other with feces.... This is why we must destroy this imperialistic country and correct our brothers and sisters, who are being destroyed. We people of color represent 50% of the prison population and only 13% in this country. We will lose now if we don't start now politically, consciously teaching our brothers and sisters in prison.
Only through Marxism-Leninism-Maoism can we change the structure and ideologies of the masses of the oppressed! They must learn that under Capitalism we will be forever exploited, subjugated, oppressed and poor! The prisoners must learn that to sell drugs is genocide and if we are going to sell anything let it be Revolution.
... Study your history comrades. Study George Jackson, Black Panther Party, VI Lenin, Marx, Engels. Then study capitalism. See how it's designed for the proletariat and working class to stay in poverty and a state of dependency. Through incarceration we prisoners are being used for labor to help pay off the national debt, and keep the bourgeois rich!
It is time to unite my brothers and sisters. In the time of peace we must prepare for war. We must unpopulate the prisons and stop bulging these capitalists' pockets. We are Great People with a superb history. We are strong. We need to start acting and demonstrating our intellect and stop being fools. Long live the Revolution....
-- A Maryland Prisoner, 15 May 1998
Top Michigan Labor Conditions
...Jobs are hard to get and if you don't have a GED you can't work at all. I got lucky and got a job as a midnight porter in the Control Center. I make $1.14 a day for 60 day, then my pay goes to #1.31 a day because I have a porter certificate.
Which brings up a point I want to clear up for you. That report, from the MDOC [Michigan Department of Incorrections], you sent out to us regarding prison pay was way off the mark. I was the form clerk a few years ago at X prison. One of my jobs was to do payroll and the top pay there was $1.71 a day and that was for skilled farm workers. If you weren't skilled the top pay was $1.14 a day. You made #35.91 for a month of 21 days at 8 hours or more a day.
...In addition some people would make jewelry boxes and sell them for $7.00 and up depending on size and design. Each box would take around 50 hours to make.
-- A Michigan Prisoner, 9 February 1998
Top Slave Labor in Michigan
...I took a look at the fact sheet you sent to me and I couldn't believe what the MDOC was claiming they pay prisoners. Personally I've been through many prison facilities, ranging from level 1-5, and I never heard or saw any MDOC prisoners being paid $1.60 an hour for labor work.
The most I've seen was 17.5 cents to 32.5 cents per hour. After 60 days on a work assignment you are qualified for a bonus but that doesn't mean you're going to get one. Also you only get bonuses for certain jobs like MSI factories, kitchen and farm workers. Everyone else doesn't get bonuses....
-- A Michigan Prisoner, 29 March 1998
Top Profits Run Amerikkkan Prisons
...The prison industry has become a Big Business in this capitalistic society. Profit has been placed about rehabilitation. Big name corporations are now profiting off slave wages. There is no unionization, and there is no form of compensation if prisoners are injured while working.
What these institutions need are programs designed to prepare one to be a productive individual once leaving prison. 95% of the prisoners in South Carolina will eventually return to society. A third of them will commit another crime and return to prison. Instead of prison being a warehouse, it needs to be a place where one can get the help he/she needs. This country is taking pride in the their motto, "Lock them up and throw away the keys". The politicians are using the prison population as pawns to win elections. Society is not aware of the injustice that is occurring in prisons all over the country. Some people believe prisons are like country clubs. That is one of the Biggest misconceptions a person can have about prison. All across the country prisoners' rights are being violated daily. In prison there is no Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, etc.
Prison guards and officials beat prisoners and place prisoners on lock-up for years because of their religious views. Because you don't follow the christian belief, you're discriminated against. Because you strive for intellectual enhancement you're pointed out as a troublemaker. The atmosphere that is created in prison is that everyone is ignorant and incapable of changing. This is another misconception that society has. We must remember that great minds (Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, etc) have come from behind prison walls. With the correct information one can bring about a transformation in her/his life.
In Japan, when a person is convicted of a crime it is seen as a failure of that society to provide the proper nurturing environment to mold that person into a productive human being. This country takes pride in its "Lock-Them Up and Throw Away the Keys" mentality. The crime rate should tell a person a lot about this county. Money matters and nothing else is important.
Peace, -- A South Carolina Prisoner, 23 July 1998
Top Frequent Transfers and Slave Wages in Pennsylvania
...There are transfers every week. They usually send transfer inmates from the westside of Pennsylvania to the eastside and eastside inmates to the westside of Pennsylvania. This is to separate inmates from family and loved ones, dig me? The pigs justification for this, "they are trying to stop drugs from coming into the prison" -- Get Real!
The concentration camp I'm at does offer jobs to prisoners but at slave wages. They start you out at 18 cents an hour. I believe the most you can earn is 42 cents an hour. As for myself, I refuse to work for these malicious pigs. They have kitchen, plumber, and block jobs. If you don't work, you get a misconduct report and you go to the hole.
Medical care is a joke. You have to sign a cash slip for $2.00 just to sign up for a sick call. And if they give you medication, that's an additional $2.00. They don't have too many good in their store, and their prices are outrageous....
-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 20 July 1998 [City X]
Top Pennsylvania Update
...Yes, there are transfers in this prison often. They are being sent to different prisons, but with the same racist mentality. Their justification is to get rid of all person-people that are radical an unmedicated (not on any kind of their drug-narcotic).
Yes, this prison offers work. You name the jobs and the prisoners do whatever they are told to do immediately. The slave wages that I get is 18 cents a day for sitting idle, because I refused to work. Nevertheless you have those that are on death row out in general population because they are working with the administration as confidential informers [CI]. I have heard that of a lot of the Snitches make $99.00 a month. Some of them nincompoop CI's make more that too. Snitches get privileges and can come out of their cells at all times without having handcuffs and shackles on. In general population if you don't work you get a misconduct [report].
They have a Bogus medical care system in practice here. You have to pay two dollars to get to sign up for a sick call to see the doctor....
-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 21 July 1998 [City Y]
Top Wisconsin Transfers Prisoners to Other States
...First off they are sending inmates to other states. They plan on sending 3000 prisoners. They have sent 300 to Minnesota, 700 to Texas, 300 to Oklahoma, 600 to Tennessee, and more to go to each state.
I received a letter from one guy in Texas, telling me that one of the Wisconsin inmates was raped in Texas by an inmate from another state. I have heard stories from other prisoners who say that two Wisconsin prisoners were killed in Texas.
...They have a prison industry, a company called fabray, they sew gloves. They pay $5.25 an hour, then the prison makes you sign to given them back 50% of your pay to help build other programs like it. You must also sign another paper giving up to another 5% of your pay to victims, even if you don't have any victims. That money is put in a state run fund for victims. They change your taxes and social security, which is illegal. You can't collect on social security while in prison so they should not be able to take social security out.
Also they have to pay health insurance. The law says anyone working in Wisconsin must pay Health Insurance to the State. So by the time they get done with your check, you have about $1.0 per hour at most. When the federal government told them to pay the inmates $6.40 and hour, the institution fired all the old prisoners and hired some back a few days later as new employees. That way, they only had to pay them $5.25 an hour. But if they had not fired them they would have had to pay them $6.40 and hour. That was their way of getting around paying $6.40 an hour.
The prisoners here do not stick together. They don't even know the meaning of it. No guard had ever killed in the Wisconsin Prison system, so guards are not afraid of prisoners. They feel safe in the prison. The state does not need a supermax but they are building one for 600 prisoners. I believe most of the prisoners who will go there will be paralegals. It is hard to get a law library pass unless you have a court deadline. Do not print my name on this because anyone who tries or tells anyone how they work things on transferring prisoners goes to the hole for a long time. They don't want anyone to mess up their process of shipping out prisoners.
There are some families of prisoners protesting, by having marches in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I heard it was about 75 people.
The prison is also trying to make a deal with a private prison in Ohio. The only reason that prison has room is because Washington [state] was sending them prisoners, but within 48 hours two of the prisoners were dead. So Washington took all their prisoners back. Now Wisconsin is trying to work out a deal with them.
-- A Wisconsin Prisoner, 27 July 1998
Top 1 out of 20 in Prison in Amerikkka
I committed a crime in South Caroling and was sentenced to 12 years. They want to oppress me under the new 85% laws, and without parole. How long do we as prisoners have to pay for crimes? The CIA commits drug crimes daily, Judges and courts break their own laws, or they decide something completely wrong. There are injustices when the law had nothing to do with fairness or justice.
The government has stated that 1 out of every 20 people in America will serve time in prison. Those making the laws or enforcing them could be the one out of twenty. The public says get tough on crime, well I was part of that public. I am a son and father, just like many of us are. The public is being guided by the government and what they see on tv. They are told we are "Undesirable Parasites" to quote Bob Dole, but we are someones: sons, fathers, sisters, mothers, etc. And yet we are treated like Shit!
The food in prison doesn't meet government food pyramid guides. The health care is poor and many cases not free... The spending in this country has increased 700% in the department of corrections, but ask yourself where is the money going? The prisoners don't see it. Training and rehabilitation programs have been taken away. State pay has been taken away. All the prisons are overcrowded. Each inmate should legally have so much living area, but they do not. ...Someone is getting a good paycheck, we keep losing privileges, but the taxes increase!!
I know what I did was wrong, but how long do I have to pay for my crime? The sentences that are being dealt out today are too long for most of the crimes. Something needs to be done. I am being dehumanized every day. The public needs to know the truth! And the prison system needs to change.
-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 25 June 1998
Top Behind Walls in Virginia
...We have to pay for our own medications and dental [costs]. The wages are 23 cents an hour for the recreation, kitchen, yard crew and cellblock workers. They do have an industry here that produces beds, lockers, chairs, etc for other institutions. It's called the sheet metal shop. Since I do not work in the industry, I don't know the exact wages, but it does pay the highest in this institution. I do not know what the work conditions are like, but I know that they have two different works shifts that each work for 12 hours a day.
The health care here is very bad. They have prisoners with HIV, AIDS, cancer and other heath problems in population. What I see is they have to be almost on their deathbed before they really get treatment.
As for education, they have schools to earn a GED, and a few trades one can learn (i.e. plumbing, electrical, commercial foods, etc.). There are no college programs. They have a law library and a regular library. ...The only censorship is they check [material] to see if weapons or drugs are hiding inside, but other than that they're not censoring material or literature....
-- A Virginia Prisoner, 24 May 1998
Top Censors Relinquish BPP Speaks
Comrades,
As i stated in my last report from SCI plantation Smithfield, the pigs refused to give me the, "Black Panthers Speaks", in which the MIM organization sent me in the mail! Well i'm proud to report that after appealing this decision to the Superintendent, it was overturned and i received the "Black Panthers Speaks" today....
In Struggle, -- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 30 July 1998
Top Struggle
Armed with Billy Clubs and Mace,
they sprayed the Brotha in the face,
No sound was heard but the thump, thump, thump
of blows... Heavy blows. Fracturing and rupturing
the bones of the vertebrae... His skull.
Broken, beaten, spit on - lied on - taunted and teased
by fools contaminated with a disease.
No, not cancer or AIDS, but the disease that is
Most Destructive: Racism, Fascism, Oppression and Obsession.
They are obsessed with the Power one feels...
The power to dominate another helpless individual.
Obsessed with the screams, blood and pleas
of a poor one's lost soul, an innocent victim
of an unnatural environment. A sad weary soldier
beaten down from battles past -- Still standing up!
And defending his Ass! One who would choose
to refuse to lose his pride and dignity
to a giant Black Bruise No sir it was not a ruse.
They set him up, they plotted and they planned
they listened not to this humble man
but a number, a timeless meaningless statistic raising static
because he chose to oppose
their colonial and imperialistic Shitstem. A victim
of the ills of a corrupted society that breeds perversion.
Like the sickening and sadistic joy they attain
Through someone else's pain.
A Human being no doubt.
He wears the clothes of a man, he walks upright
And his back is always so straight, but not as of late...
You can see him, strolling the hallways, stooped and drooped
romped and stomped, by a cyst'm of maggots that revel
in the melee of victory.
Their small physical victory of a lynching on a tree....
Top Prism of Prison
Razor wire and iron doors
Sloppy food and dingy drawers
Armed with guns and tear gas bombs
Politically corrupted power structure
Chain of command?
Well I'll be damned!
Rooms of Gloom to call my home
with peeling paint and inches to roam.
Visions of violence from Riots past
when the pigs took charge and shot the gas.
Killing my brothers in the quiet of the night
I hear their screams and fight for what's right!
But don't be mislead and don't be no fool
'cause Lucifer's the chief and a fool is his tool!
If we band together and stand for our cause
Like Ruiz-N-them did the power would pause.
Instead of fighting and killing one another you see
Let's join hands and embrace, show some unity!
And then the odds would change this rhyme
and maybe, just maybe I could do my time.
But I am a dreamer and dreams are driven away
by reality of the society and social existence
with persistence and resilience and "Oh" I might cry
or better yet die! But No!
I'm only trapped in this transparent prism
A Hellhole on Earth that's simply called prison!
-- A Texas Prisoner, 22 July 1998